Pastor John, 

This morning driving into work, I was listening to a CD, and on it you were talking about the ten lepers being healed.  You said, “Jesus told them to go to the priest and offer their sacrifice.  This is what the law told them to do but one of them disobeyed the law, and even disobeyed what Jesus told them to do, and came back and fell at Jesus feet to honor and thank him!  Jesus reply was, “Where are the nine?” 

Whew…that was so good!  I had the thought: “now that’s living above obedience!” The Spirit fell on me, and I just soaked it in!  O Jesus, let us live there!  I could just imagine the love and thankfulness that that leper must have felt for his healing, to honor Jesus like that!  

I LOVE our life!  I LOVE the food you give us!  Whew….. full, full, full! 

Michelle 

Pastor John, 

I was thinking today about the Jews who watched as Jesus was being led away by soldiers.  Some of them would have witnessed Jesus rebuking Peter, when Peter made an attempt at saving Jesus from those soldiers.  Some of those same Jews standing near may have been just moments away from doing the exact same thing that Peter did, right before Peter lunged with his sword, and met the Lord’s stern displeasure.  No doubt those Jews who might have acted would have taken the Lord’s correction of Peter into their own hearts, and obeying their Master’s wishes, would have stood fast and watched in quiet anguish as the soldiers carried Jesus away. 

I then considered the others that would have been watching that day, the other Jews that were also quietly standing by.  Also seemingly obeying the words of Jesus, as they offered no resistance to the soldiers who carried him away.  These people were doing exactly what the other Jews were doing, but for entirely different reasons.  These Jews would have been happy that Jesus had been taken captive, happy that this trouble maker, whom so many seemed to adore, was finally being dealt with.  These people were doing the same thing as those who loved the Lord, but one group was refraining from doing anything and enduring the heartache – for the sake of obeying and loving Jesus above their own desire to save him – and the other group was doing nothing simply because they wanted Jesus killed. 

They all were doing the same thing, to all of those who were looking on.  But one group was hating God’s righteousness, while the other group was loving it.

Evil imitating righteousness.  Tares imitating wheat.  Death imitating life.  It all looks the same without the eyes of Jesus to see it through.  

Thank God for the holy Ghost in us! 

Jerry

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And I might add, Jerry, that both groups were ignorant of what God was really doing in His Son Jesus.  The difference was a matter of the heart.  Some ignorantly loved God, and some ignorantly hated Him. 

Yes, thank God for the help of the Holy Ghost in our hearts! 

Pastor John

Pastor John, 

I’m sitting here considering and enjoying all that we felt Wednesday night, and the wonderful things that we heard.  The message Wednesday was, “The only part that God’s children play, in true religion, is to respond to God.  He acts, and we react – that is all that real religion is; everything else is just man’s ‘good’ idea, an idea that has nothing to do with the holiness of God or the mind of Christ.”

My, that is a lot!  It encompasses a lot – everything, really!

To consider how incredible every one of our lives is, every one of us!  To think how God has completely remade every one of us and our circumstances. And then realize that all of that, all of the growing that we have ever done in Christ, all of the changes, all of the building up and the tearing down, all of the rearranging and recreating that has occurred – every bit of it – was just us responding in faith to something that God did first!

We didn’t do a thing.  We didn’t even “come to Christ”; we don’t know the way!  He bid us to come, and we said yes.

The truth carries us.  Our only part is to just say yes in faith when He sends us the next choice to make.  We just go left, or we go right when the Spirit bids “turn”.  We have been reacting to the love of God and His intricate management of our lives and circumstances since the day we were born. We didn’t initiate a bit of this, and at no time since that first day have we (successfully) taken off under our own direction toward the Lord, because we still don’t know the way.

What a testament to the love of God, if we can’t do anything during this entire journey but respond to the Lord, and He constantly gives us guidance to which we can respond!

This way is like a moving sidewalk.  We don’t walk forward and outrun it; we don’t know where to go.  We stay on the sidewalk, let it carry us, and then turn when God says “choose”.  And we don’t know the way even then, but the Spirit in us does!  And those who do the will of God along the way, they turn the right direction when the choice comes.  “These are the sons of God”, as Paul said, and they will end up at home with Jesus, standing right at God’s front door at the end of this life.

Wonderful!

Jerry D.

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Pastor John,

I am so overwhelmed with God’s love right now.  For days, Jesus has been talking to me, drawing near and teaching me.  I love these times with Jesus.  The meeting Wednesday night was so good to me!  It brought such a peace!  “Just respond”    I felt like I could breathe again.  Like everything slowed down and the stillness of Jesus took over.  It has not left me since.

For some time now Jesus has been talking to Michelle and me with these old prayer meeting CDs.  I wish someone else could see it, just to witness him working.  We do not plan which CD we listen to, or in which order.  The years vary, yet Jesus has so perfectly timed it for us to hear lesson after lesson, in sync. There are lessons about spirits that divide, lessons about hearts and how he made them into what we see today.

Oh, to have a heart like sister Lou.  A heart that sees a scar on her flesh as what God is doing for her heart.  I want that heart.  It’s beautiful, pastor John.  There are also lessons about you.  It did something in my heart Wed. night, when you spoke of wanting what your father had, as he gave his testimony that night long ago.  It does something to me when Lou says, “We need to know who John Clark is.”  Oh I pray I cherish you.  I pray I value and honor my gift from Jesus. 

Reading Jerry’s email, and Michelle’s email, and spending so much time with Jesus learning what he has done to each heart, each child, to get them ready to come home, lets me feel that holy anchor even more.  We have a beautiful family history that Jesus has so intimately loved and formed.  I am so in love with his love for us!

I love you Pastor John

Beth

 

 

 

Pastor John, 

I was reading in Mark tonight.  I was really touched by the love and compassion Jesus had for the people. 

I read about blind Bartimaeus and how, when he heard Jesus pass by, he cried out, “O son of David! Jesus!  Have mercy on me.”  And at first the people tried to quiet him but he just cried out louder!  “Oh son of David have mercy on me!” 

Then Jesus called for him!  And his disciples said, “Be of good cheer!  He’s calling for you!”  Whew…can you imagine being blind, begging for mercy, and then the Master calls you to come to him! 

Whew I just had to stop and let that scene soak in.  Then I had this thought, well actually, this question just came out of my mouth, “How close can I get to you, Lord? Then the flood gates opened! 

I just don’t know if this human heart can take in the goodness, the love!  I’m just lying here in awe tonight. 

Michelle

Pastor John, 

This morning I have cried, spoken in tongues and felt sweet Jesus all the way to work!  Beth and I have been listening to a lot of the old CD’s.  It is just one good meal after another.  This morning I was listening to Lou testify about a dream she had and God was telling her that we are as children’s toys, useless until our Master uses us.  It was so good.   

As I was listening my heart was full of thankfulness.  I’m so thankful to be in this body.  Listening to these CDs you can see and feel how much Jesus loves us.  He is our hero, our teacher, our friend and our comfort.  I feel like complete putty in his hands this morning.  Whew….we are truly rich!  I wish all of God’s children could feel this, Pastor John!  I just want to drink it all in!

I just can’t stop crying this morning!  His goodness is just so great it makes you leak all over!

Thank you Pastor John for all the good food you’ve given to us!  I’m blessed to have you as my Pastor…..we all are!

Michelle 

 

Pastor John, 

Last night as I was getting into the shower, I raised my arm and a loud and painful “crunch” emanated from my shoulder area. For the first time, I felt the love of God toward mankind, in that pain.

I realized that with every ache and pain, every gray hair and degree of faded vision, Jesus is telling us all, “I’m coming.” The decline of our physical bodies is God helping us to see every day that He is true, and that this life is temporal; judgment is coming.

If God took a man in the prime of his life and health, it would come as a surprise to him. He would never know that time was running out.

God has loved us in putting us in these decaying vessels. Every ache and every pain is pleading with men to repent, while there is still time. 

Jerry

Pastor John, 

Riding into Raleigh this morning, I spent my time feasting again on sister Sheila’s testimony from Saturday night, replaying it in my mind (and my heart) as I drove.  Somewhere during the part where Sheila entreats us to take heed of the fact that “we will pay our debts to God before leaving this world if we are going to be saved,” God interrupted my thoughts.  The injection of His thoughts over my own was overwhelming to me, and it frightened me, as the message that I heard came with a sound and a feeling that scared me.  I did my best to record it as I drove, so that I could type it later.  This (below) is the best that I can do to reproduce what I heard.  I hope I have succeeded.

“Is God going to pay more of our debt?  If we are debtors to people’s hearts, and we don’t make that right, is God going to have to make it right, and are we going to owe him for the work that he’s done again?”

If we hurt the people around us (after we are born again) and we don’t make those things right, and those people have to cry out to God with tears in prayer, and God has to come and mend those hearts because we did not, that is God paying our debt, AGAIN, after the sacrifice of his son!  Will God pay our debt again!? 

Is God going to pay more of our debt!?

It scared me brother John.  I started pleading with God, “Please let me pay my debts.  God, please show me who it is that I owe; please show me who I’m in debt to, so that I can take care of my own debt and pay what I owe before the judgment comes.  God, allow me to pay my debt, so you don’t have to, once again.”

The last thought I had was of the man thrown in jail, that Jesus spoke of in Luke 12:59,  “I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the very last penny.” 

Good night,

Jerry